METALLICA's JAMES HETFIELD Explains Decision To Abandon His Instagram Profile

December 4, 2016

METALLICA frontman James Hetfield recently spoke to The Canadian Press about his decision to abandon his Instagram profile more than three years ago after posting regularly on the photo-sharing social media site for close to twelve months.

"I got sucked into the social media around… I was trying to be hip, trying to be cool," Hetfield explained (see video below). "You know, my kids are on Instagram [so I thought], 'I wanna try this thing.' I just wanted to look like the cool dad to my kids. And I ended up being just… It was this huge time sucker, and that's all I was thinking about. 'Oh, hey, I'm here. I can take a picture and put it on Instagram and get some hits,' or whatever, and trying to get many followers… But there is a good part to that — you know, there's actually people you can meet and converse with and get to know, and then when you get to their town, you're [like], 'Wow, hey, you're here.' And you make a friend. But most of the time, it was just sucking my time, and I just started to neglect regular life. It was living in the cyber world, and it was not for me."

METALLICA's latest album, "Hardwired… To Self-Destruct", debuted as expected at No. 1 on The Billboard 200 album chart last month, selling 291,000 copies in its first week of release. Both of the band's previous outings, 2008's "Death Magnetic" and 2003's "St. Anger", sold more copies in shortened sales weeks. "Death Magnetic" moved 490,000 copies in a three-day window, while "St. Anger" shifted 418,000 copies in a similar frame.

Asked why it took METALLICA eight years to record and release the follow-up to "Death Magnetic", Hetfield told BBC News: "Well, anything worthwhile takes work. You know, a marriage is tough enough but being married to three other guys in a band for 30-odd years? We're guys and we all have our own agenda — and we can be cynical about each other's agendas. We're creative, too, so we make up tons of stuff in our heads if we don't communicate. So communication is pretty huge."

He added: "We love each other and we hate each other and sometimes it's really easy, sometimes it's really hard, but it's always worth it."

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